forgiveness

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God – Really?

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I’ve been reflecting on my experiences of God and want to share one with you. I’ve often been puzzled by the talk of sin and God’s wrath. I used to read sermons such as those by Jonathan Edwards and try to fit my belief into the box of an angry God who needed to have his wrath appeased, but I couldn’t ever fit. Here’s a story from my early life that shows why I struggled.

I closed the back door of our home, shutting Hugh out of my life, relieved that I would never see him again. I had been very cold and closed towards him that evening, yet as I closed the door, I heard a voice and felt an impression in my heart. ‘You haven’t loved your brother in Christ.’ That was all. That was it. I heard the words and knew their truth in my heart. I felt no condemnation, but knew the reality was that I hadn’t loved him. No matter what else happened in our lives, Hugh was my brother in Christ and I had been rude to him. I knew that wasn’t the way I was supposed to be living. I wasn’t walking the path Jesus was guiding me along but was veering off on my own direction. I had asked for a life companion, a husband and Hugh had been given to me yet I had rejected the gift. What would happen now? What happens when God gives you a gift and you toss it aside?

My experience of God in that moment was of understanding, tenderness, righteousness and love. God heard the negative churning in my mind, saw the decision I made and didn’t run away from me. My coldness and rudeness were seen, understood and mirrored back to me. God spoke tenderly into my mind and my heart, describing what I had done and what I hadn’t done. I was shown a glimpse of my cruelty yet also showed a different path that I was invited to walk. I’m to love. God didn’t start with me loving the whole world, but loving one person, who was my brother in Christ, one person who has faith and is wanting to walk the path of life with me. God showed me the path of loving, the path of kindness, the path that Jesus walked. It’s a beautiful path, might not always be easy but it is the path of loving.

I didn’t hear any condemnation that day. I experienced understanding, tenderness, righteousness and love. Love for me. Love for Hugh. Understanding for what might have been. Understanding for was going to be because of my choices.

I had listened to the voices of criticism that came from a place of fear, from that place deep inside me where I was taught to fear loving, that place that carts out boulders and builds walls. God saw me in that place, had compassion on me, didn’t run from me or abandon me or shut the door on me, but spoke tenderly, firmly, and wisely into my life. God is good, faithful, kind, compassionate. God knows me, knows each of us and cares.

I’ve never encountered wrath or anger, only God’s tenderness, compassion and invitation.

Perhaps this week you would enjoy journalling one of your experiences of God.

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

Ordinariness

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It began or did it… with a friend sharing the invitation she heard, to fall in love with God. Everyday, all day she was to live deeply in love with God. One of my teachers says that we are to love God in our daily lives; each breath is to be a turning towards God. And then there is me knowing a quiet life this year, a year of not working or doing but of having my focus on loving those closest to me. When did it begin?

I have a deck of Zen cards with beautiful images on them, and thoughtful commentaries. One day after my conversation with my friend, I asked Jesus, ‘What do I need to consider today?’ and the card I drew was ORDINARINESS. It felt alive. Yes, this is my life. I am to live each day alive in God, falling in love with God and letting that love flow into the ordinary tasks/ways of life, loving the one closest to me, loving my family circle, tending the garden, sweeping the deck, walking the village streets, greeting people, enjoying my friends, praying for the world. Each day, every day in the ordinary flow of life I am to seek and know God, living a God-soaked life. Not saving the world, not doing famous things, not writing a book that gets attention, but loving those around me, anchored in love/peace/joy so that God’s being flows through me.

That’s my call

It sounds so good. When I met my friend again and described to her my ordinary life, she cried, giving me a heartfelt, ‘Yes’. Yet…it’s so hard sometimes. Sometimes I don’t want to love my family circle. I simply don’t. It feels like hard work to value them, do things for them, and keep my heart open towards them. I want to shut myself away, I want to hide. I want to be a hermit. Other times I feel the ego that wants to be noticed, to change the world.

Over this year I hear the call from Jesus to walk in the way he walked. At this time in my life I understand that to be listening to Father/Mother, loving those around me, forgiving them, enjoying them, being present to God’s breath every day, being open to God every moment. I’m so far from that… yet I’m moving toward it. At least I hope I am.

ORDINARINESS – the picture on the card is of someone, maybe a woman, walking through a field with a basket of flowers, trees in blossom all around her. Yes, the open air, the beauty of nature, my place on the planet. Finding beauty in the simple bits of life – in feeding our new granddaughter, sharing meals with family, tending a garden, cooking, planning a trip – letting all of life be sacred. Let me live easily, one step at a time, one day at a time. An ordinary life. A sacred life.

When did this call to an ordinary, sacred life begin? I think it’s always been there and finally I’m beginning to pay attention.

Dear Reader…your life too is sacred.

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion on the Rivendell Way

Society Member with Shalem

Coming Home to Where I’ve Always Been

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In March of 2017 I was beginning my Sabbath leave and a three-month ‘Retreat in Daily Life’, with Jesus’s birth narratives as my starting point in prayer. Using imaginary prayer, I was sitting around the campfire with shepherds, and as the sky filled with angels I leapt to my feet. A hand lifted me through the angels and brought me off stage. I could see the whole world, and the Jesus story as a play on the world stage. I was no longer a part of it but was in the wings watching the drama unfold. Turning, I saw a door marked ‘Director’s Office’ and I was invited to enter. Inside, I knew a presence telling me to rest, for I wasn’t needed on stage.

That was five years ago. The image and message are still alive for me. My new life in BC began as an ‘off stage’, quiet life. Sometimes it got busy but then I would quieten it again. Today something different happened. I realized how being in the Director’s Office is a sacred and holy place, yet I haven’t been focused on the Director. My ears, eyes, body are always turning to what’s happening on stage. I’m here, in this fabulous, wonderful, holy place, called by Spirit to be with our Director and I’m not focused there for I’m still turning to the distractions of the world.

I’m stunned at the awareness. I need to capture that treasure and not loose it.

I feel so graced to become aware of the gift of being in the Directors Office, and the gift of realizing that I haven’t been valuing the gift, for I have continued to be distracted by the noise on stage. I know I’m repeating myself, but I need to hear the truth. Too often I let truths blow away in the wind. I want to stay present to the Director in my everyday life. My night dreams are still full of the noise on the stage reflecting how much I’m still entangled in it.

Today I turn to Jesus and speak with him…..I’m so grateful to you.  Do I try your patience? It’s been years that I’ve been in the Director’s Office and years I haven’t always respected your call. I am so sorry. I have been as a child, naughty and distracted. I want to learn to be HERE with you. The trees have told me to be still ever since I arrived. I’ve paid some attention, but not enough. Help me keep my focus on The Director. That’s my calling, to use my will, my reason, my wisdom in focusing on You, Loving One. And I know that even as my eyes wandered back into the rush of life, you never took your eyes off me, for I am your child. I have returned home to where I’ve always been, living in your Loving…..

And you Gentle Reader. Are you wandering and now ready to return home? What might be your distractions that keep your focus off your Creator?  What keeps you rushing instead of resting and trusting?

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Companion with the Rivendell Way

Society member of Shalem

Spiritual Growth – Forgiveness: Navigating Spiritual Swamps

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Sadness slowly welled up in my heart. Not far away, the community had built a dam to contain fresh water for the cannery. What happened instead was that further up the hill the spring welled up and created a swamp killing the natural cedar growth. They made the best of a bad situation. Realizing that the ancient trees were dead, they allowed a marsh to develop and created an ecological centre with boardwalks traversing the marsh. The ancient trees stand as a reminder of what was and what could have been.

My heart’s sadness didn’t come from the marsh but from the cultural centre that has been built on the island. It is placed near the site of the residential school that held children from 1894-1974. A healing ceremony was held when the building was torn down in 2015. The cultural centre, which is the building to the left of the school, displays potlach masks and stories of the First Nations who have lived on these lands since time immemorial. It also has an historical outline of life from unknown days through first contact and into Indian Act years to present time.

Since the exposure in May of 215 unmarked graves of children in Kamloops I’ve attempted to learn more of our Canadian history. The visit to U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay was one of those opportunities. I spoke with a guardian who asked how my day was going. With honesty I replied about how I felt going through their display, acknowledging my Canadian upbringing, my lack of knowledge of their story, and my slowness in being open to learning about the sorrow. Our conversation wandered around many trails of his family experiences and mine. As I wondered about next steps, he gently and quietly said a step is into forgiveness, and the first step is to forgive yourself. He who has been hurt, speaks to me, the settler, the one on the side of those who inflicted hurt on others, to forgive myself.

The other time I heard of forgiveness spoken so deeply, intimately and quietly was from a First Nations Elder I met on Manitoulin Island in Ontario. He told stories of forgiveness, of First Nations people living forgiveness to those who had hurt them. They way he spoke was humble and authentic. He was walking the path of forgiveness. Jesus’ last recorded words as he was dying were ‘Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.’ Forgiveness is at the heart of his message to us. When I hear forgiveness from First Nations, I know they are speaking God’s truth to me, and it is for them a living truth, nothing academic or theological but experiential. They are forgiving.

If we don’t walk the path of forgiveness, towards our self and all others, it’s like building a dam inside us, a dam that will cause water to plug up and kill ancient truths within us, creating a swamp. Forgiveness of our self and others is an essential ongoing step on the path of spiritual growth. Without it, something inside us dies. Life gets messy. If you want to grow spiritually, search your heart. Are you caring any grudge toward anyone? Are you blaming anyone for your life circumstances? Are you caring shame, any tiny sense of ‘not-good-enough’? Turn to forgiveness, hear Jesus’s words of forgiveness, and begin letting go of that knot inside you. Ask for help from Jesus, God, Divine Mother, Healing Spirit, help to undo that knot inside you.

Spiritual growth often starts with a sad heart but doesn’t end there.

Do you have any knots that need untying? Who doesn’t.

Here is a link to St Michael’s story and overview of residential schools. https://roadstories.ca/st-michaels-residential-school

Love and prayers

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

Companion on The Rivendell Way

Society Member of Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation

Creek Time

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The creek is pouring down the mountainside today. We always hear the creek. Even in the summer when it becomes a small stream, we can hear it from our home. The odd day in the summer I hear the highway traffic from far below us, but usually I just hear the creek flowing. We’ve had a couple of days of rain and now the creek is FLOWING! From somewhere up high on the mountain the waters come together and find the dip in the land near our home to make the journey to the ocean. It’s relentless. Always flowing. I can’t see the source, but I know the flow.

Deep inside each of us is a mountain spring with flowing waters, waters that want to move through us and out to the ocean around us. Sometimes that Source of Love within us flows freely, sometimes it’s dry as a summer creek bed. Sometimes, to let the water flow freely, boulders or old trees have to be pushed out of the way or come bounding down the creek causing their own bit of havoc. Same for us, sometimes we have old ways, thoughts, memories, tapes that need to be washed away so the Water from the Spring of Love can flow through us.

I have a song that I sing sometimes before I meditate, or as I walk the mountain road listening to the creek beneath me. It goes something like this…..

My heart is open to you.

My heart is open to you.

My heart is open to you,

Open to You, open to You

Remove the boulders, remove the barriers, remove the debris,

So your Love flows through me,

So your Joy flows through me,

So your Peace flows through me,

So your Wisdom flows through me.

So YOU flow through me

Have some fun with it. Make up your own tune, play with the words to make them your own. Let’s sing new life into us, into those around us, into the world.

My heart is open to you….

Love and prayers from a singing Mystic in Motion  

Anne

Mystic in Motion

Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire

Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder

Society Member with Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living

Companion with The Rivendell Way


			

	


			
				


	

							
Loneliness
						

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If you’re hungry, you find something to eat. If you’re thirsty you reach for a drink. If you’re lonely perhaps like many of us you berate yourself, call yourself a loser and feel bad. Sound familiar?





What if loneliness was seen just as another basic human response to an essential human need? We need food so we get hungry. We need water so we get thirsty. We need human connection, so we get lonely.





What if being lonely wasn’t a shameful or bad feeling, but a healthy human indicator that needs a response. It is your psyche saying, time to talk to someone, go outside and smile at someone, look up family or friend, time to pick up a phone. That’s all it’s saying. Let go of the other rubbish.





Last week we watched Renee Fleming interview Dr. Vivek Murthy, former Surgeon General of America on her show ‘Music and the Mind’ regarding his book ‘Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World’. I really enjoyed his presentation. One thing he did was remove the stigma from loneliness and turn it into a healthy human attribute.





What a switch.





I found his whole presentation around how to survive, even thrive as a human so helpful. When we were children no one in my world talked like he did, offering guidance on how to navigate the rapids of human life. How to be genuinely kind and thankful when the world is cruel. How to connect intentionally and authentically with image and prestige are being promoted by others. Perhaps some of you got that as a child. I didn’t. I’ve learnt a lot as I matured, but still have so much to learn. The world is turbulent right now. We need to find compassionate ways to be together, to heal past wounds and create new ways going forward. We are meant to work together. As spiritual beings we are meant to draw on the Spirit source within us, everyday, not on special days or occasions but everyday, all day.  





Got a couple of good books on the go, but then I’m ordering ‘Together’!





I’ve got something else on loneliness and friendship for you next week, but in the meantime…. Wishing you all a warm and connecting week where you draw from the Source within.  





Love and prayers





Anne





Mystic in Motion





Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire





Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder





Society Member, Shalem Institute for Contemplative Living.

			

	


			
				


	

							
Choices
						

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I make choices. We all make them everyday.  This week I felt the cloak of judgement settle on me. Someone named an aroma of pride in me and I felt the judgement settle around me. Yes, I could smell the pride too, so I own the pride, but wrestle with the sense of judgement. I wonder if it comes from choices I make.


I was at the Blood Donor Clinic answering their long questionnaire. There is a little delight that creeps through me as I continue to check the ‘no’ boxes on the medical form. I’m 71 and I don’t take any meds. I have no underlying conditions. And yes, I can feel a bit of pride in being able to check those boxes, so when someone hinted that my pride was connected to self-righteousness I had to pause and consider.


What’s this pride about my health? What’s responsible for my health? Am I in control of it? Hardly, for partly I have my Dad’s genes and he had nothing to do with doctors till his very last years, dying at home from a heart attack at 89.  Partly I have my mom’s genes that weren’t so healthy but something inside me decided years ago that I didn’t want to follow her route, so I make food and exercise choices. Partly I suppose it’s the gift of this body for this life and in that I’m grateful. I appreciate a body that works well even as it ages. Partly I’m healthy because of genes I inherited but also because of choices I’ve made.


I think here the feeling of judgement creeps in. Some of my health comes from the emotional work I’ve done. I don’t carry a lot of emotional baggage anymore. I’m very content with my imperfections including my need to be perfect! That work reduces my stress level enormously which I’m sure leads to good body health. When something gets triggered in me, which it does, like this need to process pride, I try to clean my emotional house. I don’t like internal clutter, junk of the past that I trip over. My current lifestyle is also my choice and contributes to my health. It’s gentle, I’m open to doing more, but careful what I let in. I don’t want to overextend as I’ve done in the past. Been there done that, don’t need to do it again, but am willing to serve however I’m called. Right now, it’s that small circle I’ve written about. And I’m certainly healthy through my spiritual practices, ways of being that nourish my inner sense of Self, of connection with God’s Love, Joy, Peace and Wisdom.


I do choose to engage in spiritual practices just like I choose what to eat, but I don’t make those choices out of duty, or to look good or to belong to a group. I make those choices out of a wonderful, warm embrace of God. I feel close to something that I name as God. I know there is so much more I might experience, but I value what I have known and want more and more and more.


Possibly the core of my health is that yearning for more of God in my life, more Love, more Joy, more Peace, more Wisdom, more Gentleness, more Kindness, more Forgiveness…. I hope you know what I mean. I simply want More of MORE God. And I’ve discovered that not everyone does. For years I thought everyone needs to discover what I’ve peeked at, but I’ve come to realize that not everyone wants to peek down the pathways that I want to run down. Is that why I feel the label of judgement? I’m sort of okay now with people who don’t want to join me on spiritual cleansing paths, but maybe not completely and maybe they feel an inner judgement from me. It’s hard for me to understand why people are so caught up in the things of this life when there is so much MORE and that MORE makes this life much more wonderful. But then, I’ve only my life to live, not theirs. I need to let them live their life, walk their path and me grow in loving them just as they are. There’s room for me to grow there.


I know I feel warmth and affection toward the one that rightly named my health pride. I’m glad they did. Yet I’m also happy to make the choices that I do make about how to live my life. I wish they knew that my choices come from Love, from being loved and I kinda think they don’t know that LOVE yet as a daily life-giving fountain. That’s my basic life choice; I choose Love, more Love.


Rambling Thoughts from a Mystic in Motion


Anne


Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire


Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder


Society Member of Shalem Institute


 


 

			

	


			
				


	

							
New Perspective
						

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The Sun is warm and embracing, yet a cool breeze dances around me. I’m watching the tide go out on Manson’s Lagoon. There are a handful of tiny people on the other side exploring what’s left in the tide waters. Gulls and a heron are feeding. I’ve walked out to one of the lagoon islands for my morning meditation and watched the trickle of water head back out to the ocean. I could sit here for the day. It’s one of my favourite spots on the earth.


Sitting on the edge of the lagoon, I can see its dry bed, the open waters of the sound, the mountains of Vancouver Island and the sky stretching above me. Dry – Open – Solid – Stretching. My imagination is caught in the flow of the tides, and the sense of being on this planet within the cosmos. I feel on the edge.


When I sense this edge, everything else shifts; the struggles of life both mine and in the world, the uncertainties, the stumbles, the hopes, the possibilities, all these take on a different hue. The Edge Keeper becomes more real to me. I’m not alone on the edge.


This week I read a story, so timely after last weeks ‘Troubled Waters’. The writer was asking an elder how to bring change into the world. The elder after a long pause throws a stone into a pond. “That’s how you bring change into the world, one ripple at a time”. Change comes as I change myself, and then focus on loving those closest to me. I don’t save The World, I bring healing to my tiny portion of it. Can I do that? Can I love those in my most intimate circle? Can I create a space safe enough for their soul to show up? Last night I spoke a harsh word at someone. Guess I still I have much more to learn. At least I heard it. Now I can apologize for it.


Dry – yes sometimes I’m dry even harsh and spiky like oyster shells on the bottom of the lagoon.


Open – yes I will live open to change, to acknowledging my spiky parts, my dry parts.


Solid – yes I know The Edge Keeper who is so solid, so sure, so constant, so loving.


Stretching – yes I will be stretched to let go of old ways and be loved into new ways.


I’m grateful to live on the edge, watching the flow of life, willing to be change in my tiny spot on the earth.


Love and prayers


From a Mystic in Motion


Anne


Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire


Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder


 

			

	


			
				


	

							
Troubled Waters
						

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Two rivers coming together often create turbulence. I’ve used that image in marriage counselling so many times! And it’s one I know is true. When two lives join, when two families join it takes awhile to sort out how the new family will live.


The last few weeks I’ve been reading from two different sources. One stream of books takes me deep into our spiritual life, how we flow from the Source of All Life, how we are all interconnected, each person, plant and stone is connected. That stream leads me to joy. The other stream takes me into the social structures that have determined the lives of people within our communities, to the segregation laws, to public attachment to violence and control. That stream shows me fear. What happens when fear and joy come together?


I’ve been reading Huston Smith’s work from the late 1950’s on world religions. I wonder what would have happened in my life if I had found him in my search in 1970’s! He is speaking to the questions that I was asking: what do we want, what is the purpose of life, why are we here? He looks at the major faiths and how people have wrestled with these same questions over thousands of years. I so often felt alone in my questions, but clearly I wasn’t. I was part of a huge stream of people that search out meaning in life and that’s what gives birth to religion as a solid part of human society. As I dip into the expansive spiritual world he describes, I feel at home, and hear so many faith traditions connecting us all. It feels good.


I’ve also been reading Isabel Wilkerson’s latest book ‘Caste’ and it troubles my heart. I realize it’s from an American perspective and to read a Canadian version would be instructive, but I have enough ties to America to know connection to that story and considering their place in the world it’s an important book. I haven’t finished it yet, so I’m still digesting, as much as I can what she documents, but so far she’s begun to outline the social structure that is deeper than racism, that subjugates one human to another in brutal and binding ways. In the last section I read she traces the origins of caste in both India and America to their spiritual roots. Both countries used their holy books to justify the ranking of people and the resulting control of a dominant group. It’s chilling.


How can what I love and that leads me to joy, lead to such brutality? How can humans read the same holy books and some come away ready to enslave and dominate and others ready to serve, even unto death? And the enslavement isn’t ancient history. The last laws were repealed within my adult lifetime and the effect of those laws continues long after they were officially repealed. How can it be?


Troubled waters today. I think sometimes it’s good and necessary to go through troubled waters.


Love and prayers


Anne


Mystic in Motion


Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire


Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder


 

			

	


			
				


	

							
Attuned to Jesus
						

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The other day I heard a bell ringing repeatedly. I mentioned it to another person near me and they didn’t hear it at all. It was ringing on a frequency that wasn’t in their range. Any of us who care for dogs will experience that too. Last night on our evening walk, our dogs were so excited, and yet I couldn’t see anything! Often dogs can hear things that we can’t. The sounds are still there, but I don’t have the frequency required to hear them.


This week I’ve been thinking a lot about Jesus and how I’ve known him over the years. I feel close to him and consider him my friend, my very best spiritual teacher, the one who has made me whole, who connects me to God. I shy away from church language of ‘Savour’ or ‘Son of God’ for I find many of those words to be encased in theology and lacking the intimacy of the one who appeared in bedroom when I was eight or who spoke to me in an art gallery in Venice, or who washed me Joy one night when I was so very dirty. In this season of my life, I prefer to set aside theology and live within my known experience.


That gets me back to frequencies. I want to be attuned to Jesus, to be able  to hear his whispers and sense his movements. I want my spirit to be sensitive to Jesus and to all his friends, the ones both alive and who have left us, all who draw us closer to the source of all life, to what we call God.


I know sometimes I don’t hear his sound. Sometimes I’m distracted by the stuff of life or my own internal workings and I can’t hear when his bell rings or when he comes down the driveway at night. But I want to. I want to be attuned to the whisper of Jesus. I think I’ll ask him to help me. He’s really good at helping his friends.


What gets your attention? What or who do you listen to? Who is your friend who will help you?


Love and prayers


Anne


Mystic in Motion


Companion on the Way with Contemplative Fire


Contemplative Fire Canada, Founder